Selling or buying a restaurant
Transferable systems and a lease a buyer can finance.
If you own one
Thinking about selling your restaurant?
Restaurants are among the hardest businesses to sell well and among the easiest to sell badly. Buyers and their lenders look for documented systems, a lease with term, equipment in working order and books that reconcile to the point-of-sale. Where those exist, there is a real market. Where the owner is the chef, the buyer and the bookkeeper, the price reflects it.
What raises the price
- A lease with meaningful term and options, assignable to a buyer
- Recipes, systems and training documented rather than held by the chef
- Point-of-sale reporting that reconciles cleanly to the tax returns
- A management layer — a general manager and kitchen manager who stay
- Catering, delivery or private-event revenue alongside covers
What a buyer will discount
- The owner is the chef, the face and the manager
- Equipment at the end of its life with no capital plan
- Cash handling that makes the real earnings unprovable to a lender
- A lease expiring inside the buyer's financing term
None of this is a reason to wait. Most of these are fixable, and knowing which ones apply to you is exactly what a valuation is for.
What is my restaurant worth?
Nine questions, an indicative range on screen, and a scorecard showing which value drivers you already have and which are costing you money. No cost, no obligation, and nothing is published.
Get a free valuationPrefer to talk it through first? Use the form below — it reaches a person, not a queue.
If you want to buy one
Looking to acquire a restaurant?
Check the lease term and the landlord's attitude first, then whether the concept works without the current owner in the kitchen. Multi-unit operations and franchised concepts transfer far more predictably than owner-driven independents.
Not sure you are ready to compete? Take the readiness check — two minutes, and it tells you exactly what sellers compare buyers on.
Get told before it is listed
Most good businesses in this sector are placed with a prepared buyer before they are ever publicly advertised. Buyers on file hear first. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Register what you are looking forStart the conversation
Tell us which one you are
Whether you own a restaurant or want to buy one, this is the same first step: a short, confidential conversation with a person who has done this before.
- Read personally — never a shared inbox or an auto-responder
- Confidential. We do not contact your employees, customers or competitors
- No cost and no obligation to do anything with the answer
- You can leave anything blank and fill it in later
Handled with care and discretion
Everything you send is treated as confidential. It is read by the person you addressed it to, used only to respond to you, and never sold, shared with foreign entities or used for unsolicited marketing. We do not contact your employees, customers, suppliers or competitors.
Want it in writing first? Say so and we will send a non-disclosure agreement for signature before anything specific is discussed. Plenty of owners prefer that, and nobody is offended by being asked.
Submitting this form does not create a legally binding agreement, an engagement, or a confidentiality obligation on its own — it starts a conversation. Anything binding is a document both sides sign.
Questions owners actually ask
Restaurants & Food Service: the questions we get
How do I sell my restaurant?
Confidentially, with the lease, the equipment schedule and clean point-of-sale reporting prepared first. We value the business, present it as a blind profile, and qualify buyers under agreement so your staff and regulars learn nothing prematurely.
What is my restaurant worth?
Provable earnings, a transferable lease and documented systems. Where all three exist there is a genuine market; where earnings cannot be proven to a lender, the buyer pool narrows sharply. The valuation is free and honest about which applies.
Can I sell a restaurant that depends on me?
Yes, but the price and the buyer pool both change. Often the better plan is a year of putting systems and a manager in place first — we will tell you plainly whether that is worth it in your case.
Related business types
Also in retail, restaurant & consumer
Start with a number, not a decision
A complimentary, confidential valuation tells you what your restaurant would be worth today and what is holding it back. Whether you act on it is entirely up to you.